Emma Watson Knows How to Work a Pole

Emma Watson admits she’s not a novice when it comes to working a pole. Watson has a pole dancing scene in her upcoming film, The Bling Ring, and she says, “I did learn to pole dance for the film, and I have a small pole dancing scene. But it’s not a performance for anyone else, it’s just me messing around with my friends. I took lessons.”

Before you start thinking she’s just some party girl, she name drops Virginia Woolf. “I had this surreal experience where I was studying the modernists, writing about Virginia Woolf on Friday night, then driving to London for pole dancing classes on Saturday morning.”

Emma now has new found respect for pole dancers. “I was incredibly ungraceful at first. The upper-body strength and the core strength you need to do it gracefully is crazy. I take my hat off to the women who can do it. You have to be incredibly strong.”

Whenever a girl says you have to be incredibly strong to do something like pole dancing or yoga, in the back of my mind I’m always thinking, “Shut up, no you don’t.” Lifting a car above your head. That’s something that requires incredible strength. Sliding up and down a pole? Two weeks and you’ve nailed it.